Goal Setting

You may or may not have heard about SMART goals. For those of you who haven't, it's an acronym representing how goals should be set.

Specific - Instead of setting a goal for wanting more money, it needs to be as specific as possible such as an extra $5,000 a month. The reason so you can have a clear target to focus on instead of merely having an idea of what you want to achieve.

Measurable - Unless you can measure your results, you won't know if you're getting closer or not.

Attainable - Needs to actually be possible to achieve.

Realistic - Having a goal of losing 50 lbs safely and naturally by tomorrow is unrealistic. Set goals that have an actual chance of becoming a reality.

Time-Limit - You need to set a time frame as to when you wil accomplish the goal. This is to create urgency.

Once you set your goals correctly, the easist but highly important task is done. Now comes the hard part: Putting in the work.

Anyone can set goals but the ones who actually achieve their goals are the ones who take effective, consistent action. Let me elobarate.

We all know that to get from point A to point B, you need to move, you need to take some action. However, merely taking action doesn't mean you will reach your goals. It's important that you take the right set of actions. Doing the wrong thing, no matter how hard you work at it, won't give you the results that you want.

There are a couple of ways of knowing what effective actions to take. The first is to simply take action, evaluate the results you're getting, and chancing your approach as necessary. The second way is to have someone who has already achieved the goal that you want to achieve to tell you what actions to take. Obviously, the second approach is better.

Now even if you know what action steps to take, that still doesn't mean you will reach your goals. How many people know that to lose weight, you need to exercise and eat less than you currently do? Pretty much everyone right? But how many people continue to struggle losing weight even if they know how to lose it? This is why taking consistent action is vital.

In order to reach your goals, you need to be consistent with your efforts. Hitting the gym once a month isn't going to cut it. Doing what needs to be done only when you feel like it just won't do.

Let me put it this way: Success is hard! It takes a lot of effort to motivate yourself to take action each and every day towards your goals. The more long term your goal is, the harder it will be. Not very many people can sustain their output over a long period of time in order to achieve a big goal and that's why most people live mediocre lives.

Your motivation will play a vital role in your success. People are motivated in different ways so the best way to find out how to keep your motivation up is to think back at times you were totally motivated to do something and figure out what it was that produced that level of motivation.

Here's one tip that will make goal achieving a lot easier: Go for a goal that you have a burning desire for.

When you want a certain goal badly enough, taking consistent action will come a lot easier. Sure, you'll still have moments where you may feel discouraged or unmotivated but that strong desire will constantly pull you towards your goals.

If you want to experience a better life, have a goal that you have a burning desire for and following the SMART system in terms of setting it, figure out what steps to take to reach your goals, and take consistent action.

It sounds simple and it is. Quit making success harder than it really is. Every day, you have a simple choice of either working on your goals or putting it aside. These daily, simple decisions that you make will add up to form the quality of your life. Make too many of the wrong decisions and you'll look back at your life a year or 5 from now and wonder what happened as you drag yourself through your days feeling empty.

It's never too late to change things. Make the right decision.